I was perusing the internet one fine day and came across a website that featured freelance writers. I was going through titles of “Recently Added” articles and although there was no set topic or subject matter to write about I did see a common thread. Here are a few of the titles I saw. "Should Christians get tattoos?", "Should Christians be ashamed to celebrate Christmas publicly?", "Are Christians obliged to tithe?" Are Christians this, should Christians that, question upon question and I had to do a double take to make sure I wasn’t in a Christian specific search. Upon verifying that I was just on a regular website for writers my immediate thought was; are Christians more confused than other people? Surely it isn't a bad thing to be inquisitive, although when it pertains to your religious practices it could be interpreted as a weakness in your faith.
I'm not suggesting that people of other faiths have no questions but this is all coming up because of a specific situation. My perusal of those articles and finding that Christians seemed to have more questions than anyone else regarding what seem like common sense questions to me, immediately had me wondering. One aspect of the questions I found interesting right at the beginning was that the majority of the questions were regarding behavior and all of them were asking how to act, what was OK and what wasn't, as though the people asking needed to be told what to think and what to do. Of course as writers, we know that once we start writing about something we are sort of putting it under that big glowing light bulb. Suddenly the topic is being interrogated by our minds and dissecting this idea a bit made me really begin to consider Christianity and Christians in general.
I'm not a Christian but I know a lot of people who are and they couldn't be more different from one another. Most have a unique perspective and are open minded, they have to be to be friends with me. They have strong opinions in most things but in general get uneasy when conversation involves religion or spirituality. I wonder if those conversations put them off only when there is no one there to tell them what to think and what is OK to say. When I was young I was raised for a time by extremely fundamental Christians. I learned a lot about the religion as it was defined by them. I read and studied in depth my Bible and I was forcibly baptized and made a "born again" Christian. Unfortunately, I did all those things for them, not for me, I think that's why it didn't stick. I give thanks now to those foster parents for introducing me to the religion. I got to see an extreme form of practice, one that put the "mental" in fundamental and took the "fun" right out of it. Having that extreme perspective as a starting point helped me to recognize from the beginning how a rigid, dogmatic approach can be more damaging than helpful.
The question remains, are Christians more or less confused than anyone else? I can tell you that as a non-Christian, if that has anything to do with it, I 'm the one who's confused. I'm confused about Christians. I wonder why their practices are all so different. Is Christianity evolving more quickly than other religious theologies? I know people who call themselves Christian Pagans, which to me seems like a contradiction in terms. Still, talk to a few Pagans about Christianity and you will often find that the Pagans are the closed-minded ones. They'll accept varied pagan based religious theories as well as Thor, Diana, Hecate, Kali, Zeus and a myriad of others but they cringe when you mention the Christian God. Of course I also know people who call themselves Christian and are rigid about the way they practice their "one true God" philosophy. Christians seem to be defining Christianity as they go along and all the while criticizing people who do the same but incorporate different Religio-spiritual theologies of resonance than they do and that just reeks of hypocrisy.
People in general all over the world seem to be asking more questions about religious practices or spiritual philosophies. It would seem that as a result of not finding good answers to those questions, questions that have no answers, folks are restructuring their own methods of practicing religio-spiritual concepts. It stands to reason that since everything else evolves, religion should as well yet the debate centers around who is "right" and who is "wrong" rather than about the theologies themselves. It doesn't help that the dogmatic attitude a vast majority of rigid adherents have isn't evolving either. So many people seek confrontation rather than communication and rather than living their message they just rant about it, it becomes all about shaming rather than sharing. One of the biggest problems with the entire movement regardless of which path one is on is the compulsion to involve oneself in other people's business. Christianity more than any other religion is guilty of sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. My guess is that the death toll for Christian based religion is higher than for any other.
In my opinion this is why more and more people are going around saying that they aren't religious, they are spiritual. This statement alludes to the idea that they don't follow some dogmatic, rigid, narrow path where they might as well leave their brain in a jar at home before skipping off to church. Instead it implies that they live every day in a spiritual way whether they base their spirituality on the Bible, the Talmud, the Bhagavad-Gita or any other text. It implies that unlike religion, spirituality isn't a thing; it's a way of life. Indeed, upon going for definitions in an attempt to further illustrate my point regarding how religion and spirituality are defined I found 9 lengthy definitions for religion and 4 short and sweet definitions for spirituality. Of course people who practice a religion doggedly may be spiritual as well, there's always a counterpoint. Perhaps that's why, in a general way, a person could be said to live a spiritual life while at the same time another could be said to practice a religion, key word; practice. Another way to look at it is to suggest that religion and spirituality alike are meant to be practiced, not perfected.
To finally address the original question regarding whether or not Christians dwell in a land of confusion I'd have to say no, they aren't any more or less confused than anyone else. Suffice to say there are always more questions. For example, if so many people from all over the world are going through a spiritual awakening and none of them are completely right and none are completely wrong, why can't people unite in the fascinating questions themselves? Are religions evolving too fast for people to keep up with them? I accept that there are no answers and I dwell in possibility examining the questions. In this day and age we are all making it up as we go along and hopefully doing the best we can. We are all religious philosophers clearing the path for future generations to either come into their own spiritual journey with hate and mistrust or with unity. What choice are you making in that regard? Where does the church you attend stand on unity and understanding? To that end, and on a lighter note, I leave you with words sung by Pink:
I'm not a Christian but I know a lot of people who are and they couldn't be more different from one another. Most have a unique perspective and are open minded, they have to be to be friends with me. They have strong opinions in most things but in general get uneasy when conversation involves religion or spirituality. I wonder if those conversations put them off only when there is no one there to tell them what to think and what is OK to say. When I was young I was raised for a time by extremely fundamental Christians. I learned a lot about the religion as it was defined by them. I read and studied in depth my Bible and I was forcibly baptized and made a "born again" Christian. Unfortunately, I did all those things for them, not for me, I think that's why it didn't stick. I give thanks now to those foster parents for introducing me to the religion. I got to see an extreme form of practice, one that put the "mental" in fundamental and took the "fun" right out of it. Having that extreme perspective as a starting point helped me to recognize from the beginning how a rigid, dogmatic approach can be more damaging than helpful.
The question remains, are Christians more or less confused than anyone else? I can tell you that as a non-Christian, if that has anything to do with it, I 'm the one who's confused. I'm confused about Christians. I wonder why their practices are all so different. Is Christianity evolving more quickly than other religious theologies? I know people who call themselves Christian Pagans, which to me seems like a contradiction in terms. Still, talk to a few Pagans about Christianity and you will often find that the Pagans are the closed-minded ones. They'll accept varied pagan based religious theories as well as Thor, Diana, Hecate, Kali, Zeus and a myriad of others but they cringe when you mention the Christian God. Of course I also know people who call themselves Christian and are rigid about the way they practice their "one true God" philosophy. Christians seem to be defining Christianity as they go along and all the while criticizing people who do the same but incorporate different Religio-spiritual theologies of resonance than they do and that just reeks of hypocrisy.
People in general all over the world seem to be asking more questions about religious practices or spiritual philosophies. It would seem that as a result of not finding good answers to those questions, questions that have no answers, folks are restructuring their own methods of practicing religio-spiritual concepts. It stands to reason that since everything else evolves, religion should as well yet the debate centers around who is "right" and who is "wrong" rather than about the theologies themselves. It doesn't help that the dogmatic attitude a vast majority of rigid adherents have isn't evolving either. So many people seek confrontation rather than communication and rather than living their message they just rant about it, it becomes all about shaming rather than sharing. One of the biggest problems with the entire movement regardless of which path one is on is the compulsion to involve oneself in other people's business. Christianity more than any other religion is guilty of sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. My guess is that the death toll for Christian based religion is higher than for any other.
In my opinion this is why more and more people are going around saying that they aren't religious, they are spiritual. This statement alludes to the idea that they don't follow some dogmatic, rigid, narrow path where they might as well leave their brain in a jar at home before skipping off to church. Instead it implies that they live every day in a spiritual way whether they base their spirituality on the Bible, the Talmud, the Bhagavad-Gita or any other text. It implies that unlike religion, spirituality isn't a thing; it's a way of life. Indeed, upon going for definitions in an attempt to further illustrate my point regarding how religion and spirituality are defined I found 9 lengthy definitions for religion and 4 short and sweet definitions for spirituality. Of course people who practice a religion doggedly may be spiritual as well, there's always a counterpoint. Perhaps that's why, in a general way, a person could be said to live a spiritual life while at the same time another could be said to practice a religion, key word; practice. Another way to look at it is to suggest that religion and spirituality alike are meant to be practiced, not perfected.
To finally address the original question regarding whether or not Christians dwell in a land of confusion I'd have to say no, they aren't any more or less confused than anyone else. Suffice to say there are always more questions. For example, if so many people from all over the world are going through a spiritual awakening and none of them are completely right and none are completely wrong, why can't people unite in the fascinating questions themselves? Are religions evolving too fast for people to keep up with them? I accept that there are no answers and I dwell in possibility examining the questions. In this day and age we are all making it up as we go along and hopefully doing the best we can. We are all religious philosophers clearing the path for future generations to either come into their own spiritual journey with hate and mistrust or with unity. What choice are you making in that regard? Where does the church you attend stand on unity and understanding? To that end, and on a lighter note, I leave you with words sung by Pink:
If God is a DJ
Life is a dance floor
Love is the rhythm
you are the music
If God is a DJ
Life is a dance floor
you get what you're given
it's all how you use it.
Life is a dance floor
Love is the rhythm
you are the music
If God is a DJ
Life is a dance floor
you get what you're given
it's all how you use it.